NACS Supports Congressional Review of EV Mandates

NACS, alongside cosigners NATSO and SIGMA, sent a letter last week to members of Congress voicing support for pending Congressional Review Act resolutions to block three California-led initiatives to mandate EV technologies.

The Advanced Clean Cars I (ACC I) rules are a set of vehicle emissions and zero-emission vehicle standards created by the California Air Resources Board covering model years through 2025. It also required major automakers to produce and deliver an increasing percentage of battery-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles for sale, scaling up to roughly 8% of sales by 2025. NACS is concerned that leaving these mandates in place may undermine efforts to move toward technology-neutral regulations in the future.

In the letter, NACS argued that its members' interests lie in being able to offer whichever fuels and technologies the market demands, and do so against the backdrop of a stable, uniform federal policy framework that permits them to make that judgment based on consumer behavior rather than rigid, prescriptive mandates.

The letter states:

“The Advanced Clean Cars I (‘ACC I’) waivers permitted California and other states to mandate that an escalating percentage of vehicles delivered for sale be electric vehicles. Well-designed performance standards are technology-neutral and align economic incentives with environmental objectives. Instead of depending on one technology to act as a silver bullet, regulators should incentivize market participants to innovate and to price low-carbon alternatives competitively for consumers. …

The 2009 greenhouse gas waiver presents the same problem in an earlier form. That waiver permitted California to set greenhouse gas emission standards for new passenger cars and light duty trucks beginning with the 2009 model year, and it supplied the foundation on which the Advanced Clean Cars programs were later built. Disapproving that waiver would not preclude federal greenhouse gas regulation of light-duty vehicles, which continue under a nationwide standard. It would instead confine the setting of that standard to the federal agencies Congress charged with the task, and it would remove the earliest of the waivers on which California’s later technology mandates rest.”

NACS also has concerns that the consequences of Clean Air Act waivers are not confined to California. Once a waiver issues, Section 177 of the Clean Air Act permits any other state to adopt the California standards without further federal review. A dozen states or more have done so.

Last year, President Trump set bipartisan Congressional Review Act resolutions disapproving additional California-led EV mandate rules, including the Advanced Clean Cars II (‘ACC II’) rule, which built on the ACC I rule Congress is now reviewing.